The Budget, Different colour ties, same old routine.

Originally written in 2012. Revisited in 2026 because the story hasn’t changed — only the cast.

2026 Reflection — Fourteen Years Later

Fourteen years on, and nothing has changed. The faces behind the dispatch box are different, the slogans have been rebranded, but the script is identical. Every Budget still dresses inequality up as “responsibility,” still squeezes the people who can’t avoid it, and still rewards the ones who can.

Back in 2012, I wrote this, thinking the country might eventually wake up. Instead, the same tricks still work, the same headlines still distract, and the same people still walk away untouched. If anything, the gap between political theatre and real life has grown wider.

The actors change. The incentives don’t..Nothing has changed since 2012.  More of My work